At 01:23 PM 1/17/2005, Richard wrote:
>[...]
>I added more flour and water to the starter that I had going. Nothing
>happened after that. It's been 3 days of stiring on occassion. Temps in the
>mid 70's. Smells sour and tastes really, really sour. No rise or any bubbles
>at all.

That's where the problem seems to be. If you determined that it tastes
"really" sour, you have it oversoured and this blocks every activity. You
can wait as long as you want - until it starts smelling putrid again and
mold grows (after more than a week or so, depending if you have liquid on
top which delays this), nothing will move.

With white flour (as opposed to full grain flours), this can go very fast
and seems to be the major problem of failing here.

The way out of it (posted several times before) is to split it up and go
both ways:

a - it is oversoured and needs to be thinned - 1 : 10 old to addition,
teaspoon to 1/2 cup and if it still gets noticeable sour within 24 hours,
do the same thing again with a feeding in between.

b - it is too weak to show activity - keep on feeding on a regular basis,
every 12 hours - reduce to 1/2, then double.

By the amounts I mean flour and water, same amount by weight. If you can't
do weight, go by volume approximately, but reduce water because 1 cup of
water weights more than 1 cup of flour.

When I grew the Carls - you can see on my web site (samartha.net/SD/ ->
Carls I) that I was surprised myself, although with a different medium:
scalded flour which may or may not compare to regular flour, how quietly
and quickly it went sour.


>I then started some of the dried that I had saved and it has done nothing at
>all either.

Probably the same problem. If you do the same thing again and it shows the
same result - well...


>Is it dead? Can it be saved? I would have tried from scratch but the point
>of trying Carl's was the historical factor.

Since you stated above that it is sour, you have activity. Souring is the
main component to show that you are on track. Apparently too much and
neither top- nor bottom posting will change that.

>Thanks for any help
>Richard
>
>P.S. I crash computers and kill house plants too if that helps with the
>diagnosis.

Just keep top posting, it makes it much easier to follow - maybe blows some
minds. Oh well, you converted ;(

To follow this thread, I had to scroll down 3+ times to get to the next
"essence" - quite an annoyance - and none of it bringing up the sourness
you bring up in your first post (as it seems, maybe I overlooked it with
all the scrolling and requoting).

So, just keep at it - you got a sourdough starter going, it just needs some
fine-tuning.

Samartha



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